Lee OskarHarmonica Harmonic Minor A

I have only played Hohner harmonicas since I was an 8 year old kid in 1955 and answered the call to play a musical instrument for my 3rd grade class. “Anybody know how to play a musical instrument,” the teacher asked. My hand shot up. We had a Hohner harmonica at home but I had never done anything with it besides honk on it. So now I had a reason to have a crash course from my mom for how to actually play a tune on it. I worked up “Way Down Upon the Swanee River” and “Old Black Joe” to a public performance standard in record time and did get up and serenade the class with my newly found talent.After researching harmonicas looking to replace my old, ailing Hohner, Lee Oskar looked like a good one to try. I am very impressed with how nicely it is made and it sounds great. The A harmonic minor tuning is very unique and much fun to play around with. I also bought a Lee Oskar in C major which is also made very well and sounds great. A major draw for the Lee Oskars is the easy availability of new reed plates for when a reed breaks or goes bad which makes it very simple and relatively cheap to rebuild to as good as new. I am very impressed with the Lee Oskar harps and see no real reason to go back to Hohner, not that there is anything particularly wrong with Hohner. I have now really polished up my renditions of Swanee River and Old Black Joe and now in A harmonic minor which is a lot of fun. I’ve been playing a lot of old tunes I know in A harmonic minor which for sure is a very different sound than originally intended. Lots of fun.

This product does not work. The three hole draw is completely broken. The reed barely vibrates and it whistles extremely high pitched. I am a very experienced harmonica player, so I know how to draw correctly in the lower register and the one and two hole draw works fine, but the three hole is completely broken. I am extremely disapointed in the quality of the product that I received. I will not be buying Lee Oskars again as I have had this problem with two different Lee Oskars. It is clear that the quality control is non existant. I know that this Harmonica's tuning is unique, but it's not worth spending $40+ dollars for another broken product.UPDATE: The company is useless and not worth your money. I had to manually open my harmonica, try and release some of the tension as the harmonica's screws were WAY TOO TIGHT then I personally attempted to fix the issue with three, seven, and eight hole draw by lessening the tension and bending the reeds out from the plate and cleaning the brass reed plates. Even after extensive work to correct the issue, these three holes do not work at all. I am super disappointed and would never recommend this brand ever. I have had nothing but problems with Lee Oskar harmonicas and their customer service is terrible. Spend your money on a better brand, and forget this gypsy music garbage as you are likely to get "gypped" out of your money on a shoddy product that can't even be corrected by an experienced harmonica tinkerer.

i like the combination of features of these harmonicas, the variety of tunings is super fun. if you are trying to play song from over the garden wall this seems to be a good tuning, very dark and brooding. i like the shape of the plastic comb and the labeling of these harmonicas, i really like the vent holes, they make it more expressive to play but those with small hands may struggle.

Works great for tunes I wanted. I like to play melodies and chords in first position straight harp and this works great!I was able to play bie meir bish du schenAnd other minor swing tunesAnd worked great for King of Kings klezmer sounding praise song.Also other stuff I can't stop playing it!!

I play Eastern European Gypsy Music on Accordion, have done for forty years. I play it on the chromatic harmonica too, so when I found this instrument, I had to have it. Right out of the box it introduced a very soulful sound to my chosen music - being a minor keyed instrument, no chromatic lever is needed to get the true vibrant sound of the slow romantic tunes, or the slower mournful tunes so loved by the Gypsy musicians. Had I have found this instrument fifty years ago, I would probably never have learned the Chromatic - so maybe it is good thing, that it wasn't made that long ago. It is so much fun playing this harp, that I am going to get a couple more keys in minor to go with it. So far, I have abused it happily for a week, with no problems.

As a total novice at playing the harmonica, I ordered this basically out of curiousity. It certainly increased my own enjoyment of the harmonica - per the claims in the description, it adds the option of minor chords so common in various types of ethnic music and A minor (being the "all white key" minor scale) is a great tuining to start with.The only minor complaint is that the chord progression for the top holes is a bit hard to get used to - don't know whether this is just this particular instrument or true for A minor tunes in general.

Super quality harmonica. This is my first experience with a harmonic minor. It does take some getting used to but I am looking forward to getting acquainted with it.

Love the harmonic tuning; need to try the natural tuning next. If you are a Special 20 fan you will love this one too; they are nearly identical. The Oskar feels just a little nicer in my hand, it is a little longer, slightly thinner, and has a less pronounced flange at the fingers. All personal preference from this beginner. If these appeal to you don't miss the new Hohner Rocket (a special 20 perfected but at 2X the price).